Simon N. Powell has joined Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center as Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology, succeeding Beryl McCormick, who has served as Acting Chair since 2005. He is also a Member in Sloan-Kettering Institute's Molecular Biology Program and the incumbent of the Enid A. Haupt Chair in Radiation Oncology.
Prior to joining Memorial Sloan-Kettering, Dr. Powell was at Washington University School of Medicine, in St. Louis, where he was Professor and Head of Radiation Oncology. Before that, he had been Clinical Director of the Women's Cancer Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and co-leader of the Breast Cancer Program at the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, both affiliated with Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Powell is a leader in research into DNA repair, including the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, mutations in which can sharply increase breast cancer risk. He has recently developed tests to determine if a specific individual's breast cancer has lost the DNA repair function that is controlled by these genes, which could ultimately influence treatment decisions. He is also interested in genomic approaches to understanding the effects of radiation on tumors as well as on normal tissue.
A native of England, Dr. Powell earned his medical degree and a PhD in molecular radiation biology from the University of London. He trained at the Royal Marsden Hospital and the Institute of Cancer Research in England before coming to the United States in 1991 as a fellow in radiation oncology at Harvard Medical School.
